Diane von Furstenberg launches #InCharge initiative with Amazon

By

Gabriella Lacombe

Published
Mar 5, 2020

Designer Diane von Furstenberg is no stranger to uplifting women through her work, from the annual DVF Awards, which honor and provide grants to outstanding women, to her recent collaboration with the Girl Scouts of the USA. Now, in honor of Women's History Month, the designer has taken these efforts one step further by unveiling a new initiative to empower women in partnership with Amazon. 

First reported by Forbes, the partnership, entitled #InCharge, is the first of its kind for Amazon, which has never before participated in a partnership to promote women-owned businesses. 

As part of the deal, Amazon has launched a dedicated #InCharge page where shoppers can shop products made by women-owned businesses and browse items from an exclusive capsule collection. In addition, the page will feature stories about inspiring female business owners, and offer a reading list of books curated by von Furstenberg, which will stay up throughout the month of March. 

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Women featured on the page will include former Shark Tank contestants Sarah Ribner, founder of natural deodorant brand Piper Wai, and Andrea Sreshta, founder of solar lantern company LuminAID, as well as Adva Levin of voice-design studio Pretzel Labs, Obia Ewah of natural hair-care line, Obia Naturals, and Molly Hayward of organic feminine care business, Cora.

“The #InCharge movement is a platform, a place to rally, to use our individual connections to help all women be the women they want to be,” Furstenberg told Forbes. “And so I thought it would be fun to work with Amazon which is such a huge platform to expose people to the inspiring stories of women in charge that have started businesses and seen significant success, [in part] thanks to Amazon.”

“Amazon continually strives to be the world’s best partner for small businesses,” Nicholas Denisson, Amazon’s vice president of small business, told the publication. “As part of our celebration of International Women’s Day, we are thrilled to collaborate with Diane von Furstenberg and her #InCharge initiative to showcase some of the many thousands of women entrepreneurs working with us.”

Von Furstenberg can currently be seen in a video on the #InCharge page discussing what being a woman in charge means to her. On March 8, International Women's Day, von Furstenberg will further boost the partnership by appearing on Amazon’s homepage.

According to a report published by American Express in 2019, the number of women-owned businesses in the United States rose 21% to nearly 13 million between 2014 and 2019, while revenues increased by 21% to $1.9 trillion.